


Too Late

by maximumdanger



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast's Backstory, Character Study, Fire, Friendship, Identity, Internal Conflict, Introspection, Murder, No Dialogue, Other, POV Third Person, Past Abuse, Personal Growth, Post-Episode: c02e110 Dinner with the Devil, Regret, Revenge, Self-Doubt, Self-Reflection, Trauma, Trent Ikithon Bashing, Warning: Trent Ikithon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:28:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28832688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maximumdanger/pseuds/maximumdanger
Summary: Bren is back. Astrid doesn't know how she is supposed to feel anymore.
Relationships: Astrid & Eodwulf & Bren Aldric Ermendrud, Astrid & Eodwulf & The Mighty Nein, Astrid/Eodwulf/Bren Aldric Ermendrud
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: Blumenkrew Fics





	Too Late

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Revenge fantasies and spoilers up to c2e110.
> 
> A/N: I had this one in my Google Drive for a while. I actually wrote it back when the episode first came out, but it had a lot of work to be done on it, so I'm just now releasing it. Hopefully when I'm caught up with the show, I can do some more current work. Also, to those who have read it, thank you for all of the comments on "Glow"! It is very much appreciated :-).
> 
> Thanks to lynxladybuglover for reviewing!
> 
> Enjoy! Please leave a comment letting me know what you like/what can be improved.

It never stops hurting, really. There's a scar on her skin from that night, and it still burns when she thinks of him. She always thinks of him. It's not that she doesn't have more than enough work to keep her busy, it's just that she always feels like he's missing wherever she is. There's a void that stands between her and Eodwulf. He's supposed to be beside them now. He wasn't supposed to leave. It was inevitable that he would.

She knew Bren. He was so intelligent, a bright star of a pupil, but if any of them were to fail- no, not fail, to break- it would've been him. He matched her precision and dexterity, both in spellcraft and interrogation, but there was always a hesitation in his eyes behind cold calculation. She thought of how often she'd seen the silent wateriness in his eyes after particularly rough lessons, how his rough and scarred arms wrapped around her own jagged torso when night came, desperate for an escape from the hell that awaited them the next day in the form of a greying man with a piercing stare. Bren was attentive, but behind lightless eyes, he was always gone. He was a prisoner in his own body. They all were, in their own ways. He wanted an escape, that much was plain. Eventually, he got it.

She had her own scars, and while she was grateful for the strength her new tattoos gave her, she couldn't help the fury and bile she felt rising her in throat as she remembered the grinding of crystals against tendon and muscle beneath her skin, how badly she wanted to cry out as they were pressed into the flow of blood from slits in her arms. She bit her tongue instead. She always bit her tongue, because she was Astrid, strong and hardened and confident, and she was the best at what she did. She didn't have time to be weak, and she didn't have the luxury to worry about anything. She may not have always been a better arcanist than Bren, but she had what he didn't. She was always sure.

But now, she is not. Perhaps Bren was right. Perhaps his friends were right. When the firbolg- Caduceus- said what he did, there was a spark, her doubt in her mentor reignited. Deep down, she thinks, he was right. Ikithon was a fool. He'd always been a fool. Astrid knew this. He was blindly confident in his ideal of justice and goodness. Or maybe he didn't believe in justice at all.

Looking back, none of it felt like justice. There was blood on Astrid's hands before she'd even come of age. There were interrogations and tests of loyalty and murders. There were experiments and crystals. There were loveless evenings spent in the dormitories. There were lifeless bodies. There were perhaps hundreds of screams which echoed in Astrid's ears each night before she could even hope for sleep. She'd forgotten her own ambitions. Ikithon had wanted power and control. Bren had wanted to be a teacher. What had she wanted? Had she ever truly wanted anything of her own?

It was always fear that trumped all, overpowering want and primal need. It wasn't fear of themselves or even their teacher that kept them in line. It was the fear of the other. Fear turned to hatred, and hatred was all they needed. No matter what they did, no matter how many innocents they killed, no matter how their ethics degraded, it never mattered. The other, the outsider, was always worse. They were protecting themselves, they were protecting their empire, they were doing everything right so long as they did what they were told, so long as they stayed afraid of what would happen if they didn't.

He'd used fear to gain power and respect like any other powerful mage. He'd never been revolutionary, and she'd never been special. He was like every other mage in the Cerberus Assembly, try as they may to display their disapproval of Ikithon's teaching style. She was just one of the children whose adolescence he stole with the promise of greatness. It was all meaningless, just a drop in the ocean of blood spilled in the name of righteousness.

But Astrid had learned to live with it. After all, mental strength was key to success. Her training was worthless if she let herself go the way Bren had. All of the rounded and unsteady edges of her mind had sharpened into a directed and steadfast blade over the years. She was cold, calculating, and cunning. She didn't hold back, didn't hesitate. She knew her goals, her trajectory. She never made a mistake, except, perhaps, loving Bren. So, why, when she stared herself down in the mirror, did she see those same lightless eyes Bren had looked at her with all those years ago?

Ikithon had told Bren that he'd kept him in the sanatorium for a reason. He'd always been part of the plan. It all had to be bullshit, right? After that night, he  _ wanted  _ Bren gone. He was a source of shame. A failed experiment. Astrid could not believe for a second that he still wanted his former prodigy when he was rotting away on stark white sheets, lost in the artificial haze of delusion and nothingness, unable to think for himself.

She wanted to believe Ikithon, she really did, but she wasn't a child anymore. Eventually, indoctrination fails when one raises his students to be smarter than him. She couldn't blindly trust in charismatic words and crystals and "tough love." He didn't deserve her respect and reverence. He never did. But, somehow, he still had her. He was still stronger than her, than any of them. She was still his until he died and she could burn down everything his horrid legacy had touched.

Oftentimes, her reality burned into her like the scar choking her windpipe. It blazed like a wildfire, burning her wholly from the inside out. In the hearth, she saw her beloved friend's demise. At every meal, she saw her parents sat across from her, smiling, unmoved, unassuming, and suddenly swallowing food felt like moving a mountain. She often thought, if she decided she would kill her mentor now, what would one more ghost be? If anything, it would be a relief.

What would it take? Poison would be far too expected. Anything would be far too expected.

He could certainly feel resentment building in his prodigies. He was not so prideful that he could not acknowledge that. But, on some level, he also knew that it was too late for them. At least, it was for Astrid. She didn't want to change, not really. It was comfortable watching the world burn when you convinced yourself the fire kept it alive. He had her. What he didn't have, however, was his lost sheep.

He would be burned from the inside out just as he deserved, and he would tell Bren that he was no better than the monster he created him to be, but they would both know the truth. When he'd killed his parents, Bren snapped. This time would be different. He was different now. He was stronger, and he had a cause that he truly believed in. He didn't need to be lied to this time. They would watch their former mentor's flesh char and turn to dust, and his bones snap from heat, and they would know he'd done his former mentor a favor. They'd done the world a favor. It would be a satisfying end, and the greatest act of love Trent would ever receive from his former pupil.

Love. There was love in Bren's eyes now. The fear and hesitation and anger, it was very much still there, but she saw how he looked at his companions. There was love in all of their eyes, beside fierceness and intelligence, judgement and calculation. Things that had taken the place of Astrid's caring in the time since she began training. There was love in that girl Jester's eyes when she spoke, and while Astrid knew she'd done nothing to deserve it from her, she gave it freely. She had faith in the hardened soldiers that walked beside her eager companions. She invited them to dance. She saw good in them. There was warmth in her cold hands and rosy cheeks, and she wanted Astrid and Eodwulf to feel it, too. They all wanted them to feel it.

They knew Astrid and Eodwulf were important to Bren. That was it. Bren loved them, still, despite it all. They were still human, at least in his eyes, and perhaps neither were the people that Bren had laid beside in the warm, distant memory of adolescence, but they were still the people he had loved. And because his friends cared so deeply for him, they decided they must care for his former friends as well. Perhaps, Astrid could feel that love again, and let that gentle warmth join fiery hatred in her heart.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry if the burning alive part is inaccurate, I had no idea how to research that, so I just based it off my knowledge of cooking meat and cremation.


End file.
